I used to have a nice presentation for my students on the different kinds of storage schemes they might consider for their tool chests.
I somehow lost that presentation this year. I deleted it, overwrote it and lit it on fire I suppose.
During the last few months I’ve tried to rebuild that presentation. But until I find some free time to do that, this blog entry will suffice.
Above is a heretofore private little video I shot for a webinar on tool chests. It discusses some storage options. Also, below you will find downloads to two good historic resources you should study before dividing up the interior of your chest.
The first is from Vol. II of “Practical Woodworker,” from my personal collection.
After several requests from customers who have ordered the deluxe or standard edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possibly: Roubo on Marquetry,” we have worked out a way for you to pick up your order at Woodworking in America, Oct. 18-20.
Picking it up will allow you to get it signed by many of the people involved in the project, including author Don Williams and (we hope) Michele Pietryka-Pagán, Philippe Lafargue and designer Wesley Tanner.
We hope to have a book-release party on Thursday, Oct. 17, and a book signing on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 19. Details to follow in the coming weeks.
Unfortunately, if you are not able to attend Woodworking in America we cannot get your books autographed for you. The logistics are too complicated and we are already having to truck a huge number of books from Indiana (and unclaimed ones back) for this event. Our apologies.
I know there will be some gritching about this, but I will remind you that we are just two people and our focus is on making books, not creating autographed collectibles.
If you are attending Woodworking in America, you will be able to pick up your copy of the book at the book-release party on Thursday or in our booth in the Marketplace on Oct. 18-19. The Marketplace is not open on Sunday. To claim your book, we’ll need your name and e-mail address so we can mark you off the list.
If you’d like to order the standard edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” visit our store here. We still have some of the deluxe editions, which can be purchased here.
9. Chairmaker Peter Galbert will be teaching classes there. We are currently editing a book on chairmaking by Peter that is fantastic – he is drawing all the illustrations. Peter also should have some of his ingenious Drawsharp jigs at WIA that make it easy to rehab a drawknife. Check out Peter’s chairs on his site. Really, really good stuff.
10. We will have both versions of the A.-J. Roubo translation “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” on hand to purchase. And (on Saturday) we will have a special book signing opportunity with the entire book team. This event will probably never happen again.
Continued tomorrow.
Sign up for Woodworking in America, Oct. 18-20. Really, what else do you have to do that weekend? I thought so.
I tend to view tools and machines as neutral things. To me, a handsaw, table saw and jigsaw are all tools of my personal liberty. With them, I can ditch the obligation to work on someone’s payroll. I don’t care if the tools plug in to the wall or pre-date the Rural Electrification Act.
We focus on handwork here at Lost Art Press because that is what is missing from the market. (The world does not need another book on router tables.) But we are not hostile to machines. To us, it all depends on how the tool is used – either to free yourself or to amass capital for others.
That said, history doesn’t always see technology this way. As I was using my iron miter box today to make some door frames, I remembered a fantastic passage from the “Report of the Industrial Commission of the Chicago Labor Disputes of 1900: The Disputes in the Building and Machinery Trades, Vol. VIII” (Government Printing Office, 1901). (Props to Jeff Burks for digging up the original testimony.)
It’s an interchange between a government official and union carpenter O. E. Woodbury.
Q. Did your union at any time forbid the use of the patent miter box, or the mortising machine, in a building?
A. I think they vetoed the use of the patent miter box; but I will tell you why they did it. In the first place, the carpenter that lugs a kit that he usually has to lug from job to job has got enough to carry without lugging an iron miter box; but not only that, they are a very expensive luxury, and the carpenter’s kit is a very expensive anyway, and he runs a great risk of losing it. A great many carpenters from time to time go home at night and leave the kit worth from $25 to $40 on the job, and go in the morning back to work and find that somebody has broken into the building or the lockup shed and stolen their tools, and they find themselves without a tool to work with; and if they haven’t got a bank account, and mighty few of them have, they will not have any money to put into new tools.
The iron miter box simply increases your kit, and adds more weight to it, and more expenses to it. We feel that it is a tool that if the bosses want you to have and want you to use, because it is perhaps more accurate than the average wooden miter box, they should provide the carpenters with them. We have never said to one of our members, You can not use it. But we forbid them – I believe at one time we forbade them to buy them and to carry them around with them, because the simple fact of the matter was that it would be but a short time before we should all have to carry them around and run the risk of losing them.
